Tales of the Savlar 1st - Legacy
by wolfiuz1
Summary: Each day man strives for survival. Each day the fight gets harder and still he continues onwards. It is the 41st millennium, and there is only war. Only pain. Only sacrifice. These are the virtues of the Savlar 1st.


**The Savlar 1st**

Each day man strives for survival. Each day the fight gets harder and still he continues onwards. It is the 41st millennium, and there is only war.

Only pain.

Only sacrifice.

Hive Tarsis had withstood the barrage of an Ork horde ever since the day they arrived on-world, but now the gates were weakened and about to fall beneath the barrage of the Orkish bombardment.

We are not saints, nor are we sinners, we are a penal legion sent to die. We are Savlar, the legendary chem-dogs. That's us, soon to transcend into the god-emperor's light and dine beside him at the table of eternity.

We are the last of the defenders, the rest having fled under the orders of high command. I, the custodian of the gate watchers, had told them that the Savlar 1st would not be falling back, nor would the rest of my men. The general was a coward who ordered his men to leave civilians behind, that were weak and were sent to die. We all disembarked, and we let them take our places.

A girl dropped her teddy, and one of my men, the largest of them in fact, picked it up, handed it to the child, and ruffled her hair while shedding a tear. The others gave a forlorn salute as the transports fell back, heading towards the evacuation point up in the higher points of the spire.

On reflex I pointed the bolt pistol towards my companions, heresy would not be allowed to fester among the ranks, and it was my duty to enforce the nobility of the Imperial Creed. None of my men faltered, none of their eyes wavered, and not one dared to look away from my eyes.

I see discipline, where I should have seen bedlam.

I see composure, where I should have seen mindlessness.

I see true dedication, where I should have seen blind fanaticism.

I see humility, where I should have seen resignation.

I see determination, where I should have seen selfishness.

I see peace, where I should have seen terror.

I see faith, where I should have seen faithlessness.

I see nobility, where I should have seen filth.

The gates were nearly blasted apart, and the green tide streamed in, my men instinctively fell into cover, their las and autoguns firing away without mercy upon the encroaching horde. The heavy stubbers blared out as the lone snipers fired with deadly precision. The xenos had noticed us as the only foe present, and began to bear down upon us the joy of war bright in their eyes.

Let them come, we are the legendary 1st.

We are Savlar, and we shall know no fear.

Even as the adeptus Astartes sifted through rubble to extract any survivors or possible relics, and eliminate surviving xenos, they found none. The guardsmen had been slated for execution by disobeying a direct order, and they instead opted to hold the hive entrance singlehandedly against the Orks of Waaagh! Garzad.

The sergeant lifted another corpse from the rubble, the tattered rags of the chem dog bearing the markings of a custodian, a bolt pistol still clenched in his cold fist. As he placed him upon the pile of corpses of the legionnaires to be burned the custodian coughed, blood pouring freely from his mouth, which was no longer covered by the breathing apparatus. A smile was on the custodian's grubby lips, as he feebly attempted to make the aquila upon his chest.

With a shuddering, weak laugh, the bolt pistol fell from his lifeless hands, his face eternally set in the ghost of his laugh laugh. The sergeant continued his grim work, sifting aside the rubble and putting the invaders to death. The corpses would be burned in order to preserve the Creed, their ashes preserved to commemorate the heroic sacrifice.

For the rest of his nigh immortal life, the laugh laugh would follow him

over thirty years the hive was rebuilt in record time, and a statue was erected at the gate, fifty statues stood side by side, guns ready to fire in defiance. At their center was the custodian, bolt pistol accompanied by nothing but a combat knife, his features preserved in ceramite alongside his men.

The young girl went on to become leader of the hive, and then onto planetary governor through political subtlety.

The general, though effective in holding the line, was executed at the end of the campaign. The recordings of his office aboard the Capitol Imperialis Righteous Fervour showed no one in the room, nor in the corridor outside the room, nor was there any way for the bullet that pierced his brain to have gone through the window.

Audio recordings showed that he was shot after an elaborate speech about preserving humanity in the time of war, about virtues such as honour andnobility, and about how he had abandoned his virtues. The general met his end with laughter in his ears.


End file.
